


Continuous as the Stars that Shine

by Tammany



Series: Easter Daffodils [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Gen, M/M, Rough Draft, Transitioning, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-10
Updated: 2014-10-10
Packaged: 2018-02-20 15:01:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2433062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bottom line: this is NOT what I want it to be. It's got all the basic ingredients, but it's not quite there and not quite meshing, and it's not going to in the time I can currently give it. So--rather than leave it entirely unattended, I'm posting it, with reservations. </p><p>The title is a return to Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud." When and if I get this right, that *should* mesh all the imagery and themes I want to work with. It's just not quite there, yet. I hope that you still find it interesting. It's a process thing...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Continuous as the Stars that Shine

“Sorry to be taking so long,” Lestrade said. His hands gripped the steering wheel firmly, hands at nine and three*, eyes struggling to mark out all the possible problems ahead on the narrow little lane. The stone walls pressed in close, leaving almost no clearance for the silver sedan, and flanking hedgerows and trees hung heavy above and beside the roadway, often brushing the side panels and roof. Lestrade had tried driving with the high-beams on, only to conclude that at the speed they could travel safely the low-beams were more help.

Mycroft hummed a polite acknowledgement, but said, “No apology needed, Inspector. My driver wouldn’t take it any faster.”

Which wasn’t true—though mainly because Mycroft’s driver wouldn’t have chosen this route. He’d have cut directly to the nearest motorway. Mycroft had considered saying so—and chosen not to.

He knew this route. He’d driven it often as a young man. At one time he’d known every pothole, every sagging branch, every terrifying blind curve.

“You’re doing quite well,” he added, before going silent again.

“Uh—yeah,” Lestrade said. “Ta, then. Let me know if you need anything.”

Mycroft hummed again, and looked out the side window into the dark countryside.

Lestrade drove on.

The car was quiet, barring the occasional grunt, grumble, or soft oath from Lestrade as he navigated the tricky roadway. The car cab was dark. The engine, while not the silent purr of the government-provided Jaguars Mycroft usually rode in, was apparently well maintained and in tune. Mycroft closed his eyes, and let his senses explore the quiet, and the sense of being contained in close company with Lestrade.

It was an odd feeling. Mycroft walked the constellations of his own mental map—his equivalent of Sherlock’s Mind Palace, in which star after star of data formed a universe of relationships containing galaxies of associated information. He’d based it on the map of the night sky, and he loved reviewing the latest information from the Hubble telescope. He used each new image to fill in and flesh out the celestial splendor of his knowledge.

He walked back and back along the Milky Way, to his earliest structures, before he’d even known how to map his world. The memory was there—he knew it. He could feel it, glowing, shimmering, calling to him. Ah…

There it was. Riding with Mummy and Father, before Sherlock was even born. Sitting in the back seat, wrapped in a wool blanket, sitting as tall as he could to watch the entire night world roll by—mysterious and splendid. The woods had been blind darkness. The houses lit with warmth and life that had nothing to do with Mycroft. In the distance he’d seen the brilliant blaze of city lights—a the constellations of earth in harmony with the constellations of heaven.

The moon had stood high in the sky—almost too high, almost out of sight behind the car roof. Mycroft watched it.

“I can see the full moon, Mummy,” he’d said. “It shines.”

Mummy had murmured agreement, but it had been Father who’d sung, in his never entirely reliable voice, “I see the moon, the moon sees me, the moon sees somebody I want to see. So God bless the moon, and God bless me, and God bless the somebody I want to see.”

Mycroft, in Lestrade’s BMW, eyes closed, shivered at the memory. He was in his mid-forties now, and none too sure what he thought of God, and blessings. He knew the moon saw no one. Yet the night, remembered, had been almost too wonderful and enormous for his boy-self to contain and process. Even now, remembering, he could feel the potential, and the brilliant, addictive combination of being safe with Mummy and Father, wrapped in his blanket in the quiet car and the wild excitement of the glorious world of darkness and starlight and moonlight beyond.

“I remember feeling like this,” he said.

“What?” Lestrade’s voice was surprised, unprepared for Mycroft’s comment—but curious.

“I remember feeling like this. When I was a very young boy,” Mycroft said. “Driving with my parents on a dark night, looking at the lights and the stars and the dark woods. It was wonderful. I felt like I’d swallowed down a Guy Fawkes firework show—all rockets and streamers and Catherine Wheels going off inside.” He opened his eyes, then, and turned his head to look at Lestrade. “It was like standing at the edge of the universe, about to dive in. Amazing.”

Lestrade kept his eyes on the road. He edged the car around a pothole, barely managing to avoid the divot while keeping the side panels clear of the stone wall on Mycroft’s side. He bit his lower lip, then said, “Afraid that reminds me of nightmares I used to have as a kid, more than anything.” He sighed. “A repeater. You know—the kind where as soon as it starts you know you’ve been there before and it was rubbish that time, too.” His voice was low, steady—but with a touch of tension shivering under his disciplined calm.

“Mmmm?”

Lestrade risked a glance over, and said, apologetically, “Sorry. Don’ mean to pee all over your memories. Sounds great, you know? Just reminded me.”

“Of what?” Mycroft said. He leaned back into the car seat, tipping his head back. He closed his eyes again. “Tell me about it. I don’t mind.”

He didn’t mind. He wanted to hear. He wanted—anything, anything at all that might give him a clue how to rebuild the warm secure connection they’d made that morning. Instead he felt just like he’d said—crazy blends of safety and danger, Catherine wheels spinning and spitting sparks on his nerves, feeling like he was about to leap of St. Bart’s, like Sherlock, but with no idea if Lazarus had a chance of rising again.

Lestrade sighed. “Stupid, I’m afraid. Kid’s dream. Kid’s nightmare. Nothing more.”

“I’d still like to hear,” Mycroft said, pitching his voice softly, as he’d learned to do as a young man when he’d first worked in the Foreign office. His superior had said Mycroft’s voice was the velvet glove—his mind the iron rod. “What did you dream about?”

Lestrade chuffed, and said, “You’re not going to let go of it, are you?”

“It’s a long drive,” Mycroft said. “Hours, as I recall. Time for conversation.”

Lestrade grunted, unhappily.

“You don’t have to,” Mycroft said. “It’s not mandatory.”

Lestrade grunted again—a little, growling agreement. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Just wanted to say that. Sorry.”

Mycroft was silent. Yes, he thought. Like preparing to leap off St. Bart’s into the Milky Way. Fall forever and never land.

At last he forced himself to speak. “For what?”

“Being a chump,” Lestrade said. “This morning.”

Mycroft forced himself to breathe, then said with barely managed lightness, “I’m afraid you’ll have to be a bit more precise. There was such a lot of this morning—and so many possible things you could regret.”

Lestrade didn’t answer, he just drove on.

Mycroft sighed and curled in on himself, the way he did on the rare long flights his work forced on him. He remembered the flight to Serbia to rescue Sherlock. He’d already picked up his cover identity. He’d flown in from Russia on a military transport plane. He’d been in uniform—sure to be shot as a spy if he’d been caught. The coat had been warm. He’d wrapped his arms around himself and pulled the cap down over his ears. His nose had grown so cold, and it had dripped endlessly, requiring him to go through a handkerchief and a variety of tissues and napkins before they landed.

“The Earth looks like the sky when you fly over at night,” Mycroft said, remembering looking out the plane windows, watching the lights passing below. “Belgrade looks like a disc galaxy.”

Lestrade drew in a sharp breath. He let it out slowly, then said, “I used to dream about stars. A whole sky of stars. It went on forever. I knew it from the very beginning of the dream—that it was so big I could never reach the end of it. Huge. Fuck me, but it was enormous, and I was a star. Just one star. So little—so small I wasn’t even sure I was there.”

Mycroft could see it in his mind’s eye—a star field like his Mind Palace, and one little star lost in the infinite glory. “Mmmm,” he hummed. “Easy to get lost in it.”

“Yeah,” Lestrade said. Then he said, “So, yeah. That was bad, but that wasn’t the bad part, was it? The thing is, I’m there and I’m a star and I’m not even sure I’m big enough to really be there, but the thing is, it starts. Way over at the very edge. A star goes out.”

“Ah.” Mycroft shivered, already seeing where the child’s nightmare led. “Ah.”

“Yeah,” Lestrade said. “Then another. Only you had to wait for it, you know—and in the dream you waited forever. I mean, like, in the dream you knew it was millions of years. Millions and millions. And I waited, and the next star went out.”

Mycroft sighed, and whispered. “And a million years, and the next. And the next. I see. I do see.”

Lestrade took a deep breath, and let it gust out. “It was all gonna go out,” he said. “You know? It was all going to go out—all the universe dead, and me dead too, and all I could do was wait. I couldn’t do anything  about it.”

“Yes,” Mycroft said. He hugged himself tighter. “I don’t know which is worse, waiting or knowing it will end. Eventually.”

Lestrade said, “I don’ know. I always woke up screaming.”

“Well, yes,” Mycroft said, voice dry. “Not surprising in the least.”

Lestrade gave a tight laugh, then said, “It was a rubbish dream.”

“Yes,” Mycroft said, and wondered what his companion would say or feel if he ever described the beautiful infinity of his mind’s star field.

The car rattled along over the road.

“Is that our turnoff, or a drive?” Lestrade asked, squinting as he leaned toward the windscreen.

“Not _our_ turnoff,” Mycroft said. “Probably a drive. Or a cow path.”

“Huh,” Lestrade said, slowing the car to a stop. “Maybe I should get out and take a look?”

“Do you have a torch?”

Lestrade snorted. “I’m a copper. ‘Course I have a torch.” He pulled the car forward, then turned cautiously into the crossway, inching forward until the boot of the car had cleared the stone wall and the front doors were past the rough hedge. He turned on the parking lights, turned off the engine, and flicked on the overhead before he unlatched his seatbelt. He twisted in his seat until he could lean over into the back, where he flailed around for a few moments before coming back up with a large torch with a steel-pipe casing.

“There’s a little one in the glove box,” he said. “If you can find it it’s all yours.”

Mycroft popped the box and soon had a small hand torch. He clicked it on and off, and was relieved to find the batteries were good.

Lestrade had cracked open his door and eased himself out, walking carefully forward until he stood in front of the car. The headlights shone over the field, and the big torch swept back and forth to the sides.

“Bugger,” Lestrade said. “You win. Cow path.”

Mycroft edged out on his own side and walked forward. “Yes,” he said. “Or used to be—this was pasture, once. The gate’s gone, though—long gone from the looks of it.” He turned back and squinted into the glare of the headlights. “Did you pull in far enough to get our arse out of the lane?”

“Oh, aye,” Lestrade said. “Not bloody stupid, me.”

Mycroft grinned a tight grin, and said, “No, you’re bloody not, are you?”

“Can’t tell by Sherlock.”

“On the contrary—he wouldn’t work with you if he truly believed you were an idiot.” The field was alive with sound. “Turn off the car lights,” he said. “Turn off the torch, too.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he said, shortly. Then, “Please?”

Lestrade scoffed quietly. “Bossy sons of bitches, you Holmes boys,” he said, but his voice was mild. He walked back to the car, opened the door, and leaned in to turn off the lights. Straightening, he slammed the door then turned off the torch.  “What now?”

Mycroft didn’t answer, instead just turning his own little torch off. He stood, listening and waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

So many sounds, he thought. He let the night pour over his senses….a creaking, churring, rustling. Frog-song to the far left—a pond or ditch or marsh, perhaps. Nightjar. Fox barking somewhere well beyond the meadow. Dog-bark responding, belling out its challenge. The high-pitched sound of a nocturnal bird of some sort—Mycroft couldn’t be sure what.

“Hear it?” he said, softly.

“Hear what?”

“The night.”

Lestrade laughed. “Hardly loud enough to hear,” he said, his voice low. “Back in London this is what we call ‘silence.’”

“Everywhere has its night noises,” Mycroft said. He could see, now. He looked up. The stars were a banner flung across the sky. The moon stood high.

“Hardly there at all,” Lestrade said, looking up. “[Like a silver eyelash, and the dark side a ghost](http://astrobob.areavoices.com/files/2013/05/Moon-crescent-spruces-B_BLOG.jpg) in the crescent.”

“The old moon sleeping in the new moon’s arms.”

“What?”

“Some people call it that, when it’s like this—just a thin, bright crescent and the dark side showing like that.”

“Say it again…”

“The old moon sleeping in the new moon’s arms.”

Lestrade was silent for a moment, then said, softly, “Fuck me. That’s dead right. Bugger—look at it.”

“Some people call it Earthshine,” Mycroft told him, voice equally soft. “The light on the dark side is sunlight bouncing off the Earth and onto the dark side of the moon, and reflecting back.”

“Like the other one better,” Lestrade said, sounding stubborn. He stood in the dark, his head tipped back, his pea coat collar turned up. It wasn’t quite as dashing as Sherlock’s, but almost---almost. “It’s weird,” he said. “It makes me feel safe. I can imagine it, somehow—tired old moon lies down all knackered up there, and the little new one lies down beside him—and he feels her arms around him, and he sleeps. Makes me feel good.”

“Yes.” Then, with great uncertainty, Mycroft said, “If you had those arms around you, a million years waiting for a single star to go out would be lovely. And a million-million-million years before they’d all go out would be like winning the lottery.” In his mind he heard Father singing.

_I see the moon, the moon sees me, the moon sees somebody I want to see…_

Lestrade took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Uh…” It was a gut-deep sound, like he’d had the air knocked out of him. “Fuck…”

“I’m sorry,” Mycroft said, feeling small and helpless, as though he could see the stars going out, one by one, and the sky going dark. “I shouldn’t have… I presumed. I’m sorry.”

Lestrade scoffed, and swore softly. “Shut it, Mycroft, You don’t need to apologize.”

“I don’t mean to lessen your memories.”

“Mike, I get those damned dreams still—the divorce, a bad case. Anything can set it off. Every time I dropped off while Moriarty was blowing people up, it was all stars dropping out of existence, one by one. You think I mind having _anything_ to take the edge off that? Hell—next time I wake up sweating I’m going to remember the moon and feel those arms wrap tight.”

“Ah,” Mycroft said, his mood spinning like a weathercock. “Well. Good. I’d hoped… but I was afraid it hadn’t…”

Lestrade laughed in the darkness. “You want to know what I love?”

“I—what? I mean—yes? Yes.”

Lestrade laughed again. “I love that when you’re off balance, you can’t finish a sentence to save your life. It doesn’t happen often, and it’s usually something personal. And it doesn’t last long—you’re too sharp not to manage to recover. But it’s like that bewildered frown Sherlock gets when you hit him with a bit of human logic that just plain escapes him: there’s something so damned sweet and human about you Holmes Boys when you’re rattled.”

Mycroft felt like the ground had fallen out from under him—like he’d jumped off of St. Barts and into a field of stars. “Oh. Um—I… Oh.” He snapped his mouth shut, then, waiting for the nerves to pass. It was a good minute later before he could say, “Well, then, we probably ought to get back under way again, if we want to be home before dawn.” He was grateful for the darkness. He was sure he was blushing.

“Not yet,” Lestrade said.

“I…what?”

Lestrade’s teeth shone in the faint moonlight and starlight, but when he spoke his voice was sober and meek. “I’m sorry. I mean, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, you know?”

Mycroft shivered in his Crombie coat, and closed his eyes, trying not to remember that morning too precisely—always a challenge for him or for Sherlock. “No need,” he said, batting back the feelings, struggling for his lost reserve. He longed for the new moon to stand behind him and wrap her arms tight as the stars went dark. “I should have…I didn’t…oh, _bugger,”_ he said, frustration and regret and, yes, anger taking his control from him. “I just thought…” He stopped and forced himself through pure will to speak in complete sentences. “I had misunderstood what you were trying to tell me on the walk this morning. I’m afraid I was far more attentive to your claim to be not straight than I was to your initial point, that you are not gay. I shouldn’t have acted before taking time to better understand.”

Lestrade swore, then said, “Damn it, Mike, that’s why I’m the one saying sorry. I said what I mean and you heard it just fine. I just… I’ve never… Fuck. Now I’m the one who can’t talk…” He took a breath, then said, “I thought you were going to kiss me, and I panicked, you know? Like I said, I’ve never done anything about that—always knew I liked men and women, but it was always easier and safer to stick with women. Didn’t realize how scared I’d be to step off the edge. I screwed up, and I hurt you, and I’m sorry.”

Mycroft shrugged, arms still wrapped around himself. “No—really, there’s no need. While I confess that part of me would like to revile you and reproach you for failing to know in advance how you’d feel about something you’d never experienced, that would be…” He struggled for the right word, and settled unwillingly for the weak and sentimental term, “unfair. That would be unfair. If I had been thinking logically I’d have realized that I was going beyond what you’d meant or were ready for.”

Lestrade growled. “Mike, all you bloody did was look like you might kiss me. Might. Maybe. You were standing there at the sink with the sun behind you and that tea towel in your hand, and I set the tea out for you and you went all…. And I… I don’t know how to do any of it, Mike. I don’t know what’s different or how I’m supposed to behave or who does what with who… So I freaked, and acted like a complete prat.”

“All you did was turn your back,” Mycroft said, tartly. “And you even had the style to cover that as putting the tea kettle back. You didn’t do anything wrong, Greg. I’m the one who overreacted.” He sighed. “I’m not usually that histrionic in my responses to ordinary, blameless setbacks.”

The silence that followed was huge—infinite. Mycroft waited, and waited, unable to hope or fear—just waiting.

At last Lestrade made a small, exasperated sound. “Idiot,” he said. He stalked across the few feet between them, only the glitter starlight in his eyes giving his features form. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Mycroft,” he growled. “Not a clue. Don’t go mistaking total ignorance for a ‘setback.’ There’s a big difference between ‘I don’t know,’ and ‘I don’t want.’” Then he was moving, slowly and carefully, hands rising with the same kind of open visibility a policeman brought to try to defuse a potential bar fight. Slowly, cautiously, he put his hands on Mycroft’s waist. Mycroft could feel the warmth and pressure even through the Crombie. “I’m not kidding,” he said, voice still firm and authoritative. “No idea, sunshine. You’re going to have to show me.”

This time it was Mycroft who felt the panic rise up. He almost pulled away, then forced himself to stand, his mind racing frantically. He didn’t want to lead. He didn’t want to try, only to do it wrong or see it all come apart. He didn’t want to commit to an action only to have Lestrade again pull away in fear and distrust. He didn’t want to act even if it came out right—because if it came out right the whole world would change. His heart thundered and his breath stuttered in his chest and the adrenaline roared into his blood stream—and Lestrade waited, less than a foot away, hands on Mycroft’s waist, head high. Mycroft worried his lower lip, trying to plan and failing.

At last he nodded, and raised one hand up to cradle the back of Lestrade’s neck; the other he curled around Lestrade’s elbow. He leaned in, tipping his head, matching his lips to Lestrade’s. He kissed—a simple, chaste kiss, dry lips exploring quietly.

Lestrade made a small sound, as much curiosity as desire, and stepped closer. This time he initiated, mirroring Mycroft’s experimental touch. When he was done he leaned his forehead against Mycroft’s, and said, voice crooked and amused and affectionate, “That was the beginner’s version, wasn’t it?”

“We’re both beginner,” Mycroft said. “And perhaps on the way home I can tell you all the ways I’ve never done anything quite like this before, either.” He raised both hands to the other man’s head, cradled his skull, let his palms caress his cheeks. “You’re not the only one without a clue.”

“Maybe we should get Sherlock in to advise us,” Lestrade said, his smile pressing his cheeks against Mycroft’s hands. “He’s good with clues.”

Mycroft shuddered. “Absolutely not.” It was his command voice, solid as granite. “I would die first.”

Lestrade barked out a laugh, head tipping back, escaping Mycroft’s grip. Mycroft let his hands fall to the other man’s shoulders.

“Ah, Mike,” he chuckled, then, more softly, “Ah, Mike.” He drew in a breath, and said, “It was good. No promises. We’re going to have to see how things go. But—yeah. It was good. All right?”

It might have been nicer if Lestrade had said it was great, or wonderful, or amazing or awesome. But on consideration, Mycroft thought “good” might be a more appropriate start. Awesome might be a bit intimidating for a man who’d never attempted any sort of sex with another man—and another who’d never attempted to have a lasting relationship with anyone.

He sighed. “I think it’s a good start,” he said, then added, “And much as I hate to point it out, we do have to go home.”

As they drove home, Mycroft watched the lights of the night—the stars and the moon, then the streetlights on the motorway, and at last the rising universe that was London. His mind was filled with stars and daffodils, and when he closed his eyes he couldn’t tell where his mind palace ended and the sky began.


End file.
